A going-home day for cats & puppies; an urgent SOS for elephants

What better trip could a cat take than from a shelter to a (loving, forever) home? Sumspix

Last Saturday’s weather may have caused discomfort for people who braved the cold and wind to facilitate cat adoptions, but for lots of cats, it was a big love-in. Felines were on view in the (comparatively cozy) North Shore van for about four hours, while individuals, couples and families stopped by to see the cats and even better, to adopt them.

One family was on hand even before the trailer was ready for visitors. They finally left with two young cats and two happy little girls. When a mature couple stepped out of the trailer with a cat-carrier each, reps of the rescue groups involved all applauded. “Congratulations” was often heard, and could have applied to either the adopters or the feline adoptees bound for new homes.

Trenton Cats, the event sponsor, reported a total of 12 adoptions of cats and kittens that day, with more scheduled soon after. Three of the five cats from Trenton Animal Shelter went to new homes, and fosters were lined up for 2 others whose shelter time was running out.

Partnering at the van, EASEL adopted out four cats or kittens. And on top of all the homelessness cured, three of the five puppies who came with North Shore Animal League were adopted too. How neat is that?

Besides getting wind-burned and occasionally welled up when a specially deserving cat found a family, volunteers with each organization helped with the event in myriad ways – from saving parking spaces for the van to answering questions and checking paperwork, and from being runners for coffee and photocopies to encouraging adopters.

What a day – and it will happen again on June 15 at the same place: the Trenton Farmers Market. Save the date and plan to bring a friend who needs a cat! Or two.

in the wider world of wild animals . . .

This is no time to be an African elephant. Heartless poachers and ivory consumers threaten this magnificent creature with extinction. Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) pix

Elephant slaughter in Africa continues, with the numbers growing more horrifying every day. It had seemed that the only way to save elephants from extinction was to somehow curb China’s demand for elephant tusks, which are turned into carvings and trinkets. But how?

A report in the global edition of the NYTimes last month gave elephant death totals in Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon, three of the nations where mass murders for elephant tusks continue virtually unchecked. A spokesperson concluded, “We cannot rule out that, in our lifetime, there will no longer be any viable elephant populations in Central Africa.”

“Blood Ivory,” Carl Safina’s op-ed soon after, argued for renewal of an earlier ban. Observing the slaughter in Kenya, he concluded that “Elephant poaching must be stopped with a clear, permanent ban on ivory trading.”

Safina describes the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, which regulates ivory trading. It was this body, he reports, that enacted a 1990 global ivory ban. Ivory prices instantly collapsed, allowing elephant populations to slowly increase.

That ban worked. . . until 1999, when CITES allowed a one-time sale of stockpiled ivory to Japan, followed by a similar sale to China in 2008. Then the slaughter started again and today it's estimated that one elephant dies every 15 minutes.

Right now, March 3-14, CITES is holding its “16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties” in Bangkok, Thailand. Elephant poaching is one of the topics suggested for action. Will representatives be compassionate and brave enough to impose a worldwide ban on the ivory trade, bucking the governments, armies, criminals, poachers and middlemen, and the Chinese, all of whom are so heavily invested in elephant slaughter?